On December 11th, 1972, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the last two men to walk on the moon. Since their mission, Apollo 17, no human of any nationality, gender, or ethnicity has ever ventured beyond Earth’s orbit.
With the Artemis missions, NASA intends to change that.
The Artemis program started in 2017 as a NASA-led international effort to land the first people on the moon in half a century and as a stepping stone for future Mars missions. However, the program’s budget overruns and failure to meet deadlines have drawn considerable scrutiny. With commercial competitors such as SpaceX and Blue Origin promising to dramatically lower the cost of human spaceflight, it’s worth reexamining whether spending 93 billion dollars to re-accomplish goals already achieved by the Apollo program is really necessary. Some have even questioned whether the space agency itself justifies what it costs taxpayers.
It’s true, NASA is neither cheap nor efficient, but then again, it never really has been. Nonetheless, history has proven, with the Apollo missions, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station, that the political, security, economic, and technological benefits will make investing in Artemis more than worth its price.
First and foremost, the political and strategic advantages provided by the Artemis program are clear to see. Through the Artemis Accords, NASA has set the stage for a new sort of diplomacy with 29 other countries. Additionally, returning to the moon is an important part of maintaining America’s lead in space exploration. Other governments and corporations have already set their sights on the moon, and the next giant leap from there is shaping up to be Mars. A new space race may be in its early stages, and if the U.S. wants to win this one (as Americans agree that we do), keeping Artemis well-funded is an essential first step.
The first Artemis mission launched in November 2022. Artemis I didn’t carry any crew, but it did test the spacecraft’s systems, conducting valuable research along the way. 25 days later — 50 years to the date of the last moon landing — the Orion capsule made its splashdown back on Earth. The mission was a great scientific triumph, but it came six years later than initially promised by the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. The project is also already 6 billion dollars over budget, costing the Treasury a staggering 4.1 billion dollars for each mission.
NASA’s competitors — namely, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the space agencies of other nations — are launching rockets for far cheaper costs than the Artemis program. In the case of SpaceX, their hardware is also more innovative than what’s coming out of NASA. However, NASA is trustworthy and accountable in a way that private companies aren’t. For example, Elon Musk just recently admitted to using his authority as CEO of SpaceX to selectively shut down satellites that could have saved Ukrainian lives — a move which, intentionally or otherwise, compromised the interests of the United States. In light of these events, NASA’s reliance on the government becomes a clear strength, preventing the agency from jeopardizing ethics, research, or America’s interests in the name of profit.
Besides, while 93 billion dollars is undeniably an immense amount of money, that spending has been spread from 2012 to 2025. NASA’s annual budget, currently 25 billion dollars, is larger than that of any other space agency — but represents less than half a percent of overall government spending. It’s equally important to note that not all of that money is spent on space exploration; NASA programs range from launching climate-monitoring satellites, to developing (relatively) quiet supersonic aircraft, to defending the planet from asteroids, to pioneering sustainable aviation, and everything in between. Let’s not forget that the 7 billion dollars spent on Artemis every year wouldn’t even amount to 1 percent of the annual defense budget.
It’s tempting to imagine that funding space exploration is no different than throwing money at distant, intangible bodies. But all of that money is spent here on Earth, and NASA makes a conscious effort to distribute its economic benefits throughout all 50 states. An internal report by NASA estimated Artemis employs nearly 94,000 Americans, many of them skilled employees whose expertise would be lost without such an initiative. The same study estimated that each dollar put into the campaign would generate 15.70 dollars for the national economy.
Last, but certainly not least, is NASA’s track record with scientific innovation. The agency’s efforts have directly created commodities without which it would be difficult to imagine living. NASA plays a large part in facilitating GPS, and memory foam was developed specifically for the Apollo program. Even state-of-the-art water filtration owes much to NASA’s research for the International Space Station. Though no one can claim to know exactly what we will learn from returning to the moon, there is so much NASA can teach us about life here on Earth.
Yes, Artemis is expensive. Yes, Artemis is inefficient. But so was Apollo. So was the Space Shuttle. So is the International Space Station. Each one of these projects was criticized in its own time for high costs and low efficiency, but the world would not be the same without them. NASA needs Artemis. America needs Artemis, for diplomacy, for security, for employment, and to do what NASA does best: research.
I’ll leave you with a quote from President Kennedy. Over 60 years ago, when the Apollo missions faced similar opposition as the Artemis program does today, President Kennedy united the nation with his words.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard… because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one that we intend to win.”
